Category Archives: Lies

As the old proverb goes “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” On Sunday 02/05/2012, GOP presidential sideshow Rick Santorum removed all doubt that his extreme religious views make him an idiot when it comes to science. He told his friends on FOX “news” that abortion causes breast cancer. Current science and public health policy has shot that kind of “scientific” thinking down. It only proves that Santorum should stick to his frothy day job.Continue reading →

Pope Benedict XVI is visiting the United Kingdom this week. It is the first state visit of a Pope to the UK since 1982. Not only is there the issue of clerical child abuse to deal with but Benedict stepped in the crap by suggesting that the Nazis and Hitler were atheists. Obviously he knows about Nazis having been in the Hitler Youth but he doesn’t know his history very well.

The Pope said on 9/16 in front of Queen Elizabeth II:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”

Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.

Even a middle school student of history KNOWS that Hitler and the Nazis were NEVER atheist or anti-theist. NEVER were.

Religious conservatives like Pope Benedict like to rewrite history and attempt to associate Hitler with atheism since it fits their narrative. In fact Hitler was another in a long line of Catholic fascists in history – the same religion that gave us the Spanish Inquisition.

All one has to do is read what Hitler wrote and said during his time:

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”

Secularism is unfairly characterised and attacked by religious leaders as a way of seeking to protect their privileges.

Secularism is not atheism (lack of belief in God) and nor is it humanism (a nonreligious belief system). It is a political movement seeking specific policy end-points. Many secularists are religious and many religious people – recognising the value of keeping government and religion separate – are secular.

The Catholic Church has been good at collaborating in order to preserve their power and privilege. The Church did that with the Nazis when they signed The Reichskonkordat

This agreement did some of the following:

* Unhindered correspondence between the Holy See and German Catholics. (Article 4)
* The right of the church to collect church taxes. (Article 13)
* The oath of allegiance of the bishops: “Ich schwöre und verspreche, die verfassungsmässig gebildete Regierung zu achten und von meinem Klerus achten zu lassen” (English: I swear and vow to honor the constitutional government and to make my clergy honor it; Article 16)
* State services to the church can be abolished only in mutual agreement. (Article 18)
* Catholic religion is taught in school (article 21) and teachers for Catholic religion can be employed only with the approval of the bishop (article 22).
* Protection of Catholic organizations and freedom of religious practice. (Article 31)
* Clerics may not be members of or be active for political parties. (Article 32)

A secret annex relieved clerics from military duty in the case that mandatory military service should be reinstated.

There is some feeling that the Pope slandered secularism and atheism to distract from the clerical child abuse issue in the media. That could be a reason he made such a stupid statement about Nazi history.

For some odd reason the media has decided to focus on a small fringe of morons who get their “news” and “information” from FOX “News” or conservative talk radio. One of the idiotic messages the moron club is passing around is that all Muslims are terrorists looking to take over America and force Sharia law on all of us. These geniuses have taken to protesting the building of new Mosques. These people need a civics refresher.

“As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,” Ms. Serafin said. “I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.”

“I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,” she said. “But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”

Banning mosques is a stupid idea that doesn’t address the made up issue they have. Banning anything just pushes it underground. China banned Christian churches for years but it never got rid of Christianity. People still meet in secret even though China does allow some public Christian churches. If one is worried about terrorism and you believe they all hook up at mosques then I would want them in the open so they can be checked out if need be.

Banning mosques is nothing but symbolism like banning a church. It wouldn’t prevent youth from being radicalized. It is just a cheap and ignorant way to express your jingoism.

As pointed out in the article:

Radicalization of alienated Muslim youths is a real threat, Mr. Bagby said. “But the youth we worry about,” he said, “are not the youth that come to the mosque.”

Besides none of the geniuses advocating the idea and protests have said what would be done with all the mosques already established such as in the Pentagon. There was one at the recent Boy Scout Jamboree. The BSA – the paragon of right wing Christian fundamentalism had a mosque!

The fact is we have the 1st Amendment that has and would prevent any strict religious law from becoming public law. The religious right is concerned probably because that has been their agenda for decades – forcing biblical law on all of us.

Jewish law and some Catholic laws are administered in this country for those who hold those beliefs. Typical use is in marriage rules since the civil act of marriage – managed by the state – is separate from the religious act of marriage.

Another example is the Amish. They use public roads yet the only requirement is to use a slow moving sign on their buggies. The courts ruled that the secular purpose of the sign trumped the Amish religious beliefs against garish colors on their buggies.

Under traditional use Muslims could use some of their Sharia law in their communities as long as those laws don’t conflict with the Constitution or current public laws.

It just ticks me off that the mainstream media have blown this issue up and still have not reported the truth about the complaints.

Ilike Huffington Post for their political coverage. That’s what drew me to them in the beginning. Even as they changed their view point to be harder on the Obama Administration, I still read it every day. However editorial changes over the last few months have pushed me to stop recommending the site and to avoid linking to them in the future.

What changed my mind was when they added a religion section. At first I thought, since it was a liberal blog, it might give a fair shake to religion, instead the first articles I saw were from people bashing so-called “new atheists” and articles supporting creationism. Like the article by David Klinghoffer, from the creation shills the Discovery Institute, blaming Darwin for eugenics and the Nazis.

Then there is the Living section that is full of pseudoscientific crap one sees regularly on Oprah and “The View”. As Joshua Holland wrote:

I’ve long been a critic of HuffPo’s “Living” section, where fake doctors peddle snake oil cures and vaccine conspiracy theorists spread their poisonous misinformation. Those who read the Huffington Post solely for its (usually good) political content often don’t even realize that a couple verticals away is a den of quackery and pseudo science…

But publishing the new agey holistic naturopath crystal-healing Beverly Hills quack-to-the-stars bullshit of Adriana’s good friend’s nutritionist is one (stupid, potentially dangerous) thing. Giving a platform to the anti-science creationist dingbats at The Discovery Institute is a step in a darker direction.

Then today what should I see but in a prominent “above the fold” place a link to a live chat with the “positive thinking” huckster to the stars Tony Robbins. Here is a screen cap:

When it comes to science and medicine I have to insist on the truth and articles based on actual evidence that has been peer reviewed. Sometimes science doesn’t feel good – that isn’t its job. Science is suppose to inform us on the world in which we live.

And as blogger vjack noted:

I admit that I have been slow to act. I was torn because I continue to find excellent political content on HuffPo that I do not always see elsewhere. I have tried to avoid the woo and focus my attention on the good stuff. But now I have reached the point where the quackery simply couldn’t be avoided any longer. It is too pervasive, and it makes me question the credibility of everything else the blog does. PZ is right; it is time to walk away from HuffPo.

The Texas state school board is working on a statewide curriculum that ignores Thomas Jefferson – you know the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence – and that refuses to discuss the separation of church and state. If we aren’t careful then this cancer could spread to other states and other children.

Meet the graduating Texas senior class of 2020 and beyond. This group of students has some unique identifying characteristics, products of an education based upon textbooks crafted with an agenda. If you were to test them on their knowledge, here’s what you’d discover:

* They don’t know who Thomas Jefferson is and why he’s significant, but they do known who John Calvin is and believe he was instrumental to the formation of our nation.
* They believe the terms church and state are interchangeable.
* They do not believe in evolution as fact, but are inclined to embrace creation theory or intelligent design as the explanation for how the universe came into existence.
* They believe the right to bear arms is a first AND second amendment right granted by the Constitution. (see 11:12 entry)
* They do not understand the term “democracy”, but can define “constitutional Republic” and apply it to the American system of government.
* They don’t know that the United States Constitution bans placing one religion over others.
* They can name at least three pro-free market factors contributing to European progress in medieval times. (Yes, I’m serious. Read the 6:43 pm entry)
* They cannot define capitalism, but are completely familiar with the idea that taxation and government regulation inhibits free enterprise.
* They ignore Hispanics and their role in various historical events in the United States, such as the Alamo.

This is part of a long term effort by the religious right and other conservatives to worm their way into the system that makes these decisions and then throw out actual facts and replace them with their agenda.

The reason the issue is important and focused on Texas is because Texas is one of the largest buyer of school text books and their “standards” are spread to other districts in other states that buy the same books.

The main problem is the response from the left and those of us who support church and state separation has been to laugh at Texas but the writer of the article karoli has a warning:

Still, in all the reports I’ve seen about this, there’s a certain derision from the left that sends danger signals off in me. Laugh at the Texas School Board at your own peril. They have just succeeded in approving a statewide curriculum indoctrinating students, educating them on a single point of view, and threatening our national curriculum in far too many ways. To shrug them off or paint them as buffoons misses their larger, and largely successful, plan.

I worry that we will all be caught flat footed like we were when Intelligent Design swept the nation before the science community and its supporters were able to ramp up to fight the effort.

Areligious right front group that is against same sex marriage is going to air a commercial that not only has actors giving fake personal stories but the stories have nothing to do with same sex marriage. The group, the National Organization for Marriage, instead is smearing gays by using made up problems. The Human Rights Campaign found the audition tapes and responds to the fake ad.

Human Rights Watch response to the ad includes:

The general argument of the ad is that the push for marriage equality isn’t just about rights for same-sex couples, it’s about imposing contrary values on people of faith. The examples they cite in the ad are:

(1) A California doctor who must choose between her faith and her job

(2) A member of New Jersey church group which is punished by the state because they can’t support same-sex marriage

(3) A Massachusetts parent who stands by helpless while the state teaches her son that gay marriage is okay

The facts indicate that (1) refers to the Benitez decision in California, determining that a doctor cannot violate California anti-discrimination law by refusing to treat a lesbian based on religious belief, (2) refers to the Ocean Grove, New Jersey Methodist pavilion that was open to the general public for events but refused access for civil union ceremonies (and was fined by the state for doing so) and (3) refers to the Parker decision in Massachusetts, where parents unsuccessfully sought to end public school discussions of family diversity, including of same-sex couples.

All three examples involve religious people who enter the public sphere, but don’t want to abide by the general non-discriminatory rules everyone else does. Both (1) and (2) are really about state laws against sexual orientation discrimination, rather than specifically about marriage. And (3) is about two pairs of religious parents trying to impose their beliefs on all children in public schools.

That’s how these religious right ads and talking points go. They use an extreme view, claim it is a problem, and say it is being forced on them. The truth is they don’t want to abide by the same rules as others do. The religious right think they are exceptional or special.

*April 14th Update*

It seems the group behind the fake ad against gay marriage was not happy that the audition tape got out so they leaned on YouTube and the version of the auditions that I linked to was pulled off the service. They also pulled off a YouTube video of the segment from The Rachel Maddow Show that discussed the fake ad and the auditions and had used only clips of the auditions. Yes the religious asshats had a NEWS clip censored.

So I decided to edit this post and remove their fake ad and its link, so if you want to see it search for it yourself.

I can’t link to the audition tapes because that link won’t work after a while so instead use your favorite search engine with these key words: National Organization for Marriage Auditions